Victor Parker is Associate Professor of Classics in the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand. He has published some fifty specialized articles in Greek, Roman, and Near Eastern history as well as a commentary on the historian Ephorus.

List of Figures ix

List of Tables xii

List of Boxes xiii

Abbreviations and Reference Conventions xvi

Preface xxii

Introduction xxvii

1 The Geography of Greece 1

Part I: Bronze and "Dark Age": circa 1300-800 BC 21

2 The Mycenaean Age 23

3 The End of the Bronze Age and the Great Migrations 46

4 Greece in the Later "Dark Age" (circa 900-750 BC) 58

Part II: The Archaic Period: circa 800-479 BC 73

5 Colonization 75

6 Sparta from the Messenian Wars to the Creation of the Peloponnesian League 93

7 Tyranny 106

8 Athens from Cylon to Cleisthenes 121

9 Persia and the Ionian Revolt 138

10 The Persian Wars 151

Part III: The Classical Period: 479-323 BC 169

11 The Athenian Empire 171

12 Sparta and Athens during the Pentecontaetia 182

13 From the Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War to the Peace of Nicias 196

14 From the Peace of Nicias to the Surrender of Athens 210

15 The Lacedaemonian Ascendancy in Greece 227

16 The Boeotian Ascendancy in Greece and the Second Athenian League 243

17 The West from the Sicilian Expedition to the Campaigns of Timoleon 257

18 Philip of Macedon and the Conquest of Greece 272

19 Alexander the Great and the Conquest of Persia 293

Part IV: The Hellenistic Period: 323-30 BC 317

20 The Wars of the Diadochi 319

21 The Creation of the Hellenistic States 336

22 Sicily and the West from Agathocles to the First Punic War 351

23 The Hellenistic World in Equilibrium 364

24 The Coming of Rome 387

25 Twilight of the Hellenistic World 409

Tables of Rulers 429

Glossary 434

Index 458